05/28/2012

04/01/2012

(Reuters) - Senegal's Macky Sall claimed victory on Monday in a hotly contended presidential election over incumbent Abdoulaye Wade, who quickly conceded defeat in a move that could bolster the West African state's democratic credentials.

Thousands of residents of the capital Dakar poured onto the streets overnight, honking car horns, beating drums and singing in hope of change after 12 years of Wade rule that has seen big infrastructure spending but little progress in tackling poverty.

"The big winner tonight is the Senegalese people," Sall, 50, said of a smoothly-held election that contrasted with the chaos in neighboring Mali after last week's coup by army mutineers.

"We have shown to the world our democracy is mature. I will be the president of all the Senegalese," said Sall, a former prime minister for Wade who acrimoniously split from his mentor in 2008, told an overnight news conference.

Wade, 85, in power since 2000, began his career as president with a sterling democratic reputation but drew criticism for seeking to extend his rule with a third term, setting off street protests in which six people were killed.

"Results coming in suggest Mr Macky Sall has won. As I always promised, I called him in the evening of March 25 to congratulate him," said Wade, who faced pressure from France, the United States and others not to stand for a new term.

Mamadou Barry, one of thousands partying around Dakar's Place de l'Obelisque, the centre of months of anti-Wade protests, said the country where average daily income is $3 was pinning its hopes on Sall for change.

"I voted Socialist in the first round but I am glad Sall won. Now we have to watch him to make sure he sticks to his promises," the 32-year-old shoe salesman said of a perception among many that Sall - like Wade an economic liberal - must still prove he can bring real change.

"At last, 12 years of misery over. Now we have hope of change," said Soul Dias, 52, a chauffeur in Dakar.

Sall campaigned for Sunday's election on lowering the cost of living for Senegalese, including by cutting taxes on rice. He had criticized Wade for pursuing vanity projects - including an African Renaissance Monument standing slightly taller than New York's Statue of Liberty - instead of helping poor Senegalese.

The election was the latest test for democracy in a region plagued by bloodshed and flawed votes, including Ivory Coast's which triggered a civil war last year.

Senegal is the only nation on mainland West Africa not to have seen a coup or civil war since independence. A military coup in Mali demonstrated how quickly a democracy can unravel.

PROTESTS

Opposition activists had said Wade's quest for a third term was unconstitutional and some voters viewed him as yet another example of a long-serving African leader seeking to hang on to power.

The Constitutional Council, however, upheld his argument that his first term did not count because it began before a two-term limit was adopted. The ruling set off weeks of protests in which at least six people died.

Early results from Dakar, where Wade has faced his harshest opposition, showed Sall ahead, including in Wade's own precinct in the upscale Point E neighborhood with 417 votes to Wade's 120. Full results are expected later on Monday or Tuesday.

(Reuters) - Senegal's Macky Sall claimed victory on Monday in a hotly contended presidential election over incumbent Abdoulaye Wade, who quickly conceded defeat in a move that could bolster the West African state's democratic credentials.

Thousands of residents of the capital Dakar poured onto the streets overnight, honking car horns, beating drums and singing in hope of change after 12 years of Wade rule that has seen big infrastructure spending but little progress in tackling poverty.

"The big winner tonight is the Senegalese people," Sall, 50, said of a smoothly-held election that contrasted with the chaos in neighboring Mali after last week's coup by army mutineers.

"We have shown to the world our democracy is mature. I will be the president of all the Senegalese," said Sall, a former prime minister for Wade who acrimoniously split from his mentor in 2008, told an overnight news conference.

Wade, 85, in power since 2000, began his career as president with a sterling democratic reputation but drew criticism for seeking to extend his rule with a third term, setting off street protests in which six people were killed.

"Results coming in suggest Mr Macky Sall has won. As I always promised, I called him in the evening of March 25 to congratulate him," said Wade, who faced pressure from France, the United States and others not to stand for a new term.

Mamadou Barry, one of thousands partying around Dakar's Place de l'Obelisque, the centre of months of anti-Wade protests, said the country where average daily income is $3 was pinning its hopes on Sall for change.

"I voted Socialist in the first round but I am glad Sall won. Now we have to watch him to make sure he sticks to his promises," the 32-year-old shoe salesman said of a perception among many that Sall - like Wade an economic liberal - must still prove he can bring real change.

"At last, 12 years of misery over. Now we have hope of change," said Soul Dias, 52, a chauffeur in Dakar.

Sall campaigned for Sunday's election on lowering the cost of living for Senegalese, including by cutting taxes on rice. He had criticized Wade for pursuing vanity projects - including an African Renaissance Monument standing slightly taller than New York's Statue of Liberty - instead of helping poor Senegalese.

The election was the latest test for democracy in a region plagued by bloodshed and flawed votes, including Ivory Coast's which triggered a civil war last year.

Senegal is the only nation on mainland West Africa not to have seen a coup or civil war since independence. A military coup in Mali demonstrated how quickly a democracy can unravel.

PROTESTS

Opposition activists had said Wade's quest for a third term was unconstitutional and some voters viewed him as yet another example of a long-serving African leader seeking to hang on to power.

The Constitutional Council, however, upheld his argument that his first term did not count because it began before a two-term limit was adopted. The ruling set off weeks of protests in which at least six people died.

Early results from Dakar, where Wade has faced his harshest opposition, showed Sall ahead, including in Wade's own precinct in the upscale Point E neighborhood with 417 votes to Wade's 120. Full results are expected later on Monday or Tuesday.

03/16/2012

Languages like Chinese and Spanish have grown considerably on the web (see infograph) and Internet users in foreign markets prefer to conduct searches in their own language.

In order to tap into foreign search markets, companies need to provide a multilingual website that covers the languages of the targeted markets.

This post will outline strategies on how a non-speaker of foreign languages can conduct keyword especially for Latin based languages like French, Spanish, German etc.

Translating Keywords

The first step is to translate an existing keyword set to find equivalents in another language.

Translation tools like Yahoo’s Babelfish (recommended) and Google Translate can be used to translate keywords.Use translation dictionaries like Bab.La to verify their accuracy.

It is recommended that a professional translator, preferably a native speaker, is used because of their understanding of the language and ability to provide localized keywords.

Local understanding of what terms are appropriate in a market can generally only be provided by a native speaker.

Another way of finding accurate keywords is by analyzing competitors who rank highly for generic terms that are to be targeted; this can be used to get an idea of what search terms work in a specific market.

03/11/2012

The methodology behind this list of startups had two simple directives. First, the startup had to have African roots and secondly it had to be brilliant.

More specifically, we were looking for that type of brilliance that exudes intelligence, talent, quality or simply, something fresh. Of course brilliance, like most things in life, is subjective, so we went into this journey with an open mind. Tabula rasa if you will and we hoped to recognise brilliance when we saw it. We did, over and over again.

Why did we focus on Africa? The continent’s one-billion people are coming online and 600-million of them already have mobile phones. It is estimated that by 2040, Africa’s working age population will be the largest in the world, making for a large number of young, active consumers — the brand conscious, aspirational demographic businesses covet. In the last 10 years 117-million Africans have migrated to cities, establishing a larger, wealthier concentration of people in need of goods and services and making Africa more urbanised than India and almost on par with China. Consumer spending grows by four percent a year and by 2020, Accenture estimates that poverty levels in Africa will fall to 20% from nearly 45% percent in the1980s.

The secret is out. Wired likens the opportunities in Africa to those of the pre-dotcom boom in 1995. Says the magazine: “If you want to become extremely wealthy over the next five years, and you have a basic grasp of technology, here’s a no-brainer: move to Africa.”

So what opportunities are indigenous African tech startups seizing? Let’s take a look. Please note that this list is not exhaustive by any stretch of the imagination. Instead, consider it a sampling of African talent and be sure to let us know about brilliant startups that should also be on this list. We look forward to hearing from you and compiling a sequel to this article.

This startup made a disruptive entrance into the personal finance management scene just a few weeks ago when it launched to equal measures of censure and praise. The closest thing to the wildly successful Mint to come out of the African continent, 22seven shows you how you’ve spent your money, helps you think about why and suggests changes you can make to better manage your income.

Why is it brilliant? The user interface design and experience is both exceptionally powerful and beautiful. Yes, the Flash platform is an offbeat choice and yes, it’s scary to entrust your banking details to anyone, let alone a faceless site on the web, but don’t let that detract from the fact that 22seven is an ultra compelling service created with plenty of swagger and style.

Admittedly, my Wolof is rudimentary and does need improvement. But gone are the days when a flawlessly exercised greeting in high school French would do the trick for you in Dakar. Yes, Senegal was a French colony; in fact it was the oldest one. Yes, Senegal’s first president Léopold Sédar Senghor was a giant of French literature. And yes, his successor Abdou Diouf heads the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie. But this formal attachment to the French language is a far cry from your everyday street experience.

I am reminded of a conversation I had some years ago with a Dutch development worker. She confidently informed me that indigenous African languages were on the way out, being under constant assault from the big international languages. She may have had a point in the case of very small minority languages in pockets of Africa, but the idea that this continent will shortly only converse in foreign languages is ludicrous. Case in point: Senegal.

In the markets, in the taxis, in the shops and on the streets of Dakar, the language is Wolof. Go north and east and the language will be Halpulaar. Or take mbalax, Senegal’s signature popular music. All of it is sung in Wolof. Even international hits get the Wolof treatment, both in words and in music – and the result is usually an improvement on the original. French repertoire has virtually disappeared from Senegalese radio, which in most cases is a good thing; there is an awful lot of awful French pop music around. Mbalax rules, and if it’s not mbalax it’s hip-hop or that American musical disease known as R&B.

Someone who is the sum total of a lot of these elements is a guy called Akon. Senegalese by birth, lives in the USA, has made the same record with different words about twenty times and is an accomplished showman. Now picture a scene in a Senegalese town where a young crowd is singing along with all his tunes, word for word – in English! Happened last year, in Saint Louis, the oldest French settlement on the African coast.

03/10/2012

“Isn’t India in North America?” a classmate asked in the seventh grade. I, along with the students around her, was completely dumbfounded. This is typical of the results you’ll see in an education system with no global focus. Yes, this may be an extreme example, but nonetheless it is a true account. At my school, at least, students are always complaining about the emphasis on standardized tests and not enough on experience and hands-on learning. The problem is, not enough American students take advantage of opportunities for global exposure and there are not enough cross-cultural initiatives to bring foreign students to the U.S. or vice versa. The world is calling for global citizens, but the U.S. has not yet answered.

Compared to other countries, the U.S. lags behind in its globally-minded students. Asia Society’s Heather Singmaster named four examples of nations who are already doing a great job of preparing the rising generation for a global economy: China, Singapore, Korea and India. I have noticed some common characteristics prevalent in these countries. They all require students to become experts in at least one foreign language (usually English), and the governments have recognized and acted on the fact that the future depends on the understanding of a globally-integrated world. Sure, these countries are also externally focused since their own economy is either developing (China, India, Korea) or too small to support the needs of the nation (Singapore). Most of the U.S. kids I know from school drop out of foreign language before they graduate. They fulfill the two-year requirement and replace Spanish or French with a random elective that does not even follow them after high school. When I asked a friend why he dropped Spanish, he replied, “When am I ever going to actually use it?”

03/05/2012

THERE is no extent to the various kind of employment local youths are establishing right here, based on their cultural skills and knowhow.

In the case of Cultural Educator Johnny Ngomeley, his work took him to Australia, where he managed to make certain advancements in his belief that there is a lot more each person can do to bridge the ignorance gap between nations, which he says hinders the development of all concerned.

It was thought that he was still there in "Down Under" continuing with his work but surprisingly enough, a couple of days ago the 'Star' bumped into him along Samora Avenue.

He was having his shoe shined and exchanging views with those present. It was not sure as to what was the greater attraction between having clean footwear and the conversation.

This wasn't discovered but what was learnt is that he had returned to Tanzania last December, after three years working in Blue Mountains, New South Wales (NSW), which is located in the east of the country. "I simply came back here because this is my home and I've property here that needs my personal supervision.

While I was in Australia I was studying, together with continuing with my cultural promotion and educating activities. Remember it's my job to help people become aware of others' culture so as to reduce or get-rid of the negative impact that often happens when they meet," he replied to an enquiry in regards to his presence here.

The property here that he was referring to is in the Kigamboni area and Mufindi District of Iringa Region, where he is originally from. At the time he seemed caught in the talk, which at one point he had to explain how he got into this line of work in the first place. It was his passion, he says that got him physically involved in cultural promotion and performing since 1983.

Besides this he has worked for three decades in music, sports and artefacts industries and is involved in organic farming. Ngomeley made no secret that he was very proud of how he earns his living, for since he was a small boy he enjoyed seeing how music was being used to celebrate birthdays, weddings and even at harvest times. It is from this that he has created a repertoire that mixes local traditional dance styles with contemporary ones.

Now he has established and runs an organisation called Cross Cultural Ecosystems, which promotes cultural awareness and offers programmes for cultural development in communities, schools, organisations and corporations. This was after having organised sustainable projects in small villages throughout the country, before going to Australia.

Running these from a closer reach are some of the reasons, he says that has brought about his returned to Tanzania. At first he found it different being in Australia because the way things are ran there is certainly not like how they're done here. The pace there is a lot faster than here.

"Western countries are more controlled and everything is regis- tered, so there are a lot of layers when talking about culture. When you know that this is the way a certain group lives then you cannot be shocked. Things became clearer when he started creating something to help people understand others' culture. One of the early programmes that he established was called African Venture.

This was basically from pre to high school. When it comes to culture performances in general he has to take note of people's working places, the community at large and individual levels of understanding. The national and continental levels have greater differences that have to be considered.